Medieval English nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 / by Eileen Power.

  • Eileen Power
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medieval English nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 / by Eileen Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of different convents among the citizens of London. Between the years 1258 and the Dissolution, 52 wills contain references to one or more nuns related to the testators1. From these it appears that the most popular house was Clerkenwell in Middlesex, which is mentioned in nine wills2. Barking in Essex comes next with eight references3, and St Helen’s Bishops- gate with seven4; the house of Minoresses without Aldgate is five times mentioned5, Haliwell6 in London and Stratford-atte- Bowe7 outside, having five and four references respectively, Kil- burn in Middlesex three8, Sopwell in Hertfordshire two9, Mailing10 and Sheppey11 in Kent two each. Other convents are mentioned once only and in some cases a testator leaves legacies to nuns by name, without mentioning where they are professed. All these houses were in the diocese of London and either in or near the capital itself; they lay in the counties of Middlesex, Kent, Essex, Hertford and Bedford12. It was but rarely that city girls went as far afield as Denny in Cambridgeshire, where the famous fishmonger and mayor of London, John Philpott, had a daughter Thomasina. Thus the nobles, the gentry and the superior rank of burgess —the upper and the upper-middle classes—sent their daughters to nunneries. But nuns were drawn from no lower class; poor girls of the lowest rank—whether the daughters of artisans or of country labourers—seem never to have taken the veil. A certain degree of education was demanded in a nun before her admission and the poor man’s daughter would have neither the money, the 1 Not counting legacies left to various nunneries, without specific reference to a relative professed there. 2 Sharpe, op. cit. 1, pp. 107, 300, 313, 324, 408, 501, 585, 701. Philip le Taillour had three daughters here in 1292 (1, p. 107), and William de Leyre had three daughters here in 1322 (1, p. 300). 3 Ib. 1, pp. 222, 303, 569, 638, 688; 11, pp. 20, 76, 115, 4 lb. 1, pp. 229, 303, 342, 400, 435; 11, pp. 47, 170. Ten nuns in all. 5 lb. 11, pp. 119, 267, 331, 577, 589. 6 lb. 1, pp. 26, 126, 238, 349, 628. Ralph le Blund’s three daughters and his sister-in-law were all nuns here in 1295 (1, p. 126) and Thomas Romayn, alderman and pepperer, left bequests to two daughters and to their aunt in 1313 (ib. 1, p. 288). 7 Ib. 1, pp. 34, hi, 611; 11, p. 119. 8 Ib. 11, pp. 167, 271, 274. 8 Ib. 11, pp. 474, 564. 10 Ib. 1, pp. 510, 638. 11 Ib. 1, p. 119; 11, p. 306. 12 There are two exceptions, Greenfield (Lines.) (ib. 11, p. 327), and Amesbury (Wilts.) (ib. 11, p. 326), but the testators in these cases are not burgesses, but a knight and a clerk.
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